في حوالي عشر عملات بكيس الغسيل.

At the start of a Levantine sentence, في often means there is / there are.

So:

في حوالي عشر عملات...
= There are about ten coins...

This is a very common pattern in spoken Levantine. Here, في is not just the preposition in.

Because the sentence uses two different ideas:

• في at the beginning = there is / there are
• بـ in بكيس = in

So the structure is basically:

• في = there are
• حوالي عشر عملات = about ten coins
• بكيس الغسيل = in the laundry bag

A natural English breakdown would be:

There are about ten coins in the laundry bag.

حوالي means about, around, or approximately.

So:

• حوالي عشر عملات = about ten coins

It comes before the number, just like about in English.

In Levantine speech, learners may also hear similar words for approximation, but حوالي is very common and easy to recognize.

This is because Arabic numbers agree with nouns in a way that often feels backwards to English speakers.

The noun عملة is feminine.
For numbers 3–10, the number usually takes the opposite gender of the noun.

So:

• عملة = feminine singular
• عملات = feminine plural
• therefore the number is عشر rather than عشرة

That is why ten coins is:

عشر عملات

This is one of the most important number patterns to learn in Arabic.

Because with numbers 3 through 10, Arabic normally uses a plural noun after the number.

So:

• عشر عملات = ten coins

This matches the Arabic counting rule for this number range.

A useful pattern to remember:

• 3–10 → number + plural noun
• 11 and above often behave differently and usually take a singular noun

So this sentence is following a normal Arabic counting pattern.

بكيس الغسيل means in the laundry bag.

It breaks down like this:

• بـ = in
• كيس = bag
• الغسيل = the laundry / the washing

So:

• كيس الغسيل = the laundry bag
  literally: bag of the laundry

This is an idafa structure, where two nouns are linked together:

• كيس
  • الغسيل
• bag
  • the laundry

Because short prepositions in Arabic often attach directly to the following word.

So:

• ب + كيس → بكيس

This is completely normal.
You will often see things like:

• بالبيت = in the house / at home
• بالسيارة = in the car / by car
• بكيس = in a bag

In writing, this attached form is standard.

Because Arabic usually does not use a present-tense verb to be the way English does.

Instead, Levantine often uses في to express existence:

• في كتاب = there is a book
• في ناس هون = there are people here

So في حوالي عشر عملات بكيس الغسيل is a complete sentence without needing a separate word for are.

It is understandable, and a Levantine speaker would get it. But it sounds a little neutral or slightly closer to Standard Arabic than very casual everyday speech.

More conversational Levantine alternatives might be:

• في حوالي عشر عملات بكيس الغسيل
• كيس الغسيل فيه حوالي عشر عملات
• في شي عشر عملات بكيس الغسيل
  where شي can make it sound more like somewhere around ten

So the original sentence is fine, but in everyday speech you might hear a slightly different version.

A simple learner-friendly pronunciation is:

fii ḥawāli ʿashr ʿumlāt b-kiis il-ghasiil

A few notes:

• في = fii
• عشر starts with ʿ, the sound of ع
• عملات = ʿumlāt
• بكيس = b-kiis
• الغسيل = il-ghasiil in a broad Levantine-style pronunciation

You do not need perfect pronunciation right away; the most important things are recognizing:

• في = there are
• حوالي = about
• عشر عملات = ten coins
• بكيس الغسيل = in the laundry bag